Smarsh Acquires Mobile Communication Archiving Innovator MobileGuard

PORTLAND, Ore., December 8, 2016 – Smarsh®, the leading provider of cloud-based information archiving solutions for compliance, e-discovery and risk management, has completed the acquisition of MobileGuard, a pioneer in mobile communication monitoring and retention solutions. With the integration of its long-time partner, Smarsh leverages the acquired patented intellectual property and development resources to enhance its market-leading, comprehensive support for all types of mobile communication.

“The use of text messaging without the proper governance safeguards in place leaves a company at risk for brand and reputation problems, compliance consequences, and potentially devastating legal issues,” said Stephen Marsh, founder and CEO of Smarsh. “This is an area of tremendous vulnerability that many companies have ignored. And the businesses that have tried to deal with this situation have either adopted multiple, disparate products that still leave gaps, or they have attempted to prohibit the use of mobile text messaging for business – which is unrealistic.”

Smarsh now offers the only archiving solution that captures mobile/text content directly from leading telecom carriers. Organizations can retain and supervise mobile/text content no matter which operating systems, mobile carriers or devices (company-issued or Bring Your Own Device) the organization and its employees use. Mobile/text content is available for search, review and production within The Archiving Platform from Smarsh, alongside an organization’s archived email, social media, instant messaging and web content.

“MobileGuard has been innovating in the space for years, is trusted by top brands, and has been a valuable partner of ours with a shared vision to mitigate the compliance chaos that is implicit with digital trends,” said Marsh. “Together, we provide companies with the most comprehensive mobile archiving and monitoring solutions available, designed to eliminate the complexities that emerge from the variety of mobile configurations typically found within an organization.”

“Our long partnership with Smarsh allowed us to help hundreds of their customers alongside our own,” said Todd Cohan, MobileGuard CEO. “This is a strong, strategic move that enables greater innovation and growth.”

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Biggest Elephant in the Room

Whether to comply with regulatory or e-discovery requirements, respond to public records requests, or to protect their brand, organizations must retain, govern and produce text messages with the same scrutiny as email and all other electronic communications used by its employees. However, the effective governance of SMS and MMS text messages has lagged.

According to Gartner’s Solve Increasing Governance Challenges Caused by IM, Social and Mobile Content1, “Communications such as social content, instant and text messages can have serious governance implications, as they have become a key mechanism of decision making, authority, consent and agreement. Messaging data archiving has expanded well beyond just email, presenting new challenges for IT leaders.”

Additionally, in the financial services industry, text messaging represents the largest electronic communications compliance gap. According to the 2016 Electronic Communications Compliance Survey, 68% of respondents within firms that allow SMS/text for business communication reported they do not have an archiving/supervision solution in place.

Smarsh® delivers a comprehensive and integrated stack of cloud-based information archiving applications and services that help companies protect themselves and manage risk. Its centralized platform provides a unified compliance and e-discovery workflow across the entire range of digital communications, including email, public and enterprise social media, websites, instant messaging and mobile messaging. Founded in 2001, Smarsh helps more than 20,000 organizations meet regulatory compliance, e-discovery and record retention requirements. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with offices in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles and London.

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